Promoter and vectors for plant transformation and methods of using same

ABSTRACT

The invention is directed to a promoter, designated MuB, sequences which hybridize to same and functional fragments thereof. The regulatory element of the invention provide improved expression in plants of operably linked nucleotide sequences. Expression vectors with the regulatory element is the subject of the invention, which may further include an operably linked nucleotide sequence. The invention is further directed to transformed plant tissue including the nucleotide sequence and to transformed plants and seeds thereof. The regulatory element is useful for driving gene or antisense expression or the like for the purpose of imparting agronomically useful traits such as, but not limited to, increase in yield, disease resistance, insect resistance, herbicide tolerance, drought tolerance and salt tolerance in plants.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The expression of a heterologous nucleotide sequence in a plant cell is impacted by regulatory nucleic acids. Promoters and terminators are two types of regulatory elements that impact expression of such operably linked sequences. Promoters are vital molecular tools that have been applied widely in plant biotechnology to control the expression of introduced genes. A promoter is a nucleic acid sequence to which RNA polymerase must bind if it is to transcribe the linked gene into messenger RNA and ultimately produce protein. A promoter may affect a structural gene operationally associated with the promoter in different ways. For example, it may enhance or repress expression of an associated structural gene, subject that gene to developmental regulation, or contribute to the tissue-specific regulation of that gene. There are different types of promoters used dependent upon the function desired. Constitutive promoters provide for expression throughout all tissues of the plant, where tissue preferred promoters will express at a higher rate in a (or a few) select tissue of the plant. Inducible promoters are those which induce the regulatory affect of the promoter in response to a stimulus, which can be, for example, chemical, temperature, stress, wounding or other stimuli. The linked nucleotide sequence can perform any of a wide variety of functions desired, whether it is repressing or initiating expression of a trait or protein of interest, providing for over-expression, modifying metabolic and developmental pathways within the plant tissue, or the like.

Several promoters of plant and plant pathogen (bacterial and viral) origin have been used to direct transgene expression in plants. Prominent examples include the French bean beta-phaseolin promoter (Bustos et al., 1989), the mannopine synthase promoter of Agrobacterium tumefaciens (Leung et al., 1991), and the 35S promoter of cauliflower mosaic virus (Guilley et al., 1982). These and several other promoters in widespread use in plants were originally developed and utilized in dicot species. Despite the desire to identify constitutive promoters capable of driving a relatively high level of gene expression in most tissues of the plant, there remain few to choose from and there is an ongoing need to identify promoters for use in expressing linked sequences.

All references cited herein are incorporated herein by reference.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A promoter designated MuB has been identified, and function as a promoter demonstrated. The invention is further directed to sequences which hybridize to same under highly stringent circumstances and functional fragments. In an embodiment, the regulatory element is used to regulate high level, constitutive expression of linked nucleotide sequences.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows the promoter sequence of the invention, SEQ ID NO: 1. the putative TATA box is underlined.

FIG. 2 shows the nucleotide sequence, including all 351 base pairs of the MuB promoter, and the source of each homologous sequence from which a given segment is mostly comprised. The source and GenBank accession is as follows: A: MuA U.S. Pat. No. 6,222,096 (SEQ ID NO: 2); B: AB000835 (SEQ ID NO: 3); C: Y08502 (SEQ ID NO: 4); D: U09376 (SEQ ID NO: 5); E: AB005247 (SEQ ID NO: 6); F: AF028711 (SEQ ID NO: 7); G: AC002521 (SEQ ID NO: 8); H: D12522 (SEQ ID NO: 9); I: AB012243 (SEQ ID NO: 10); J: AL022347 (SEQ ID NO: 11).

FIG. 3 shows the homology between the MuB and the CaMV 35S promoter sequences (SEQ ID NO: 12) over a 351 bp overlap.

FIG. 4 shows the homology between the MuB and the MuA promoter sequences (SEQ ID NO: 13) over a 352 bp overlap.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The present invention is directed to a promoter, designated MuB, providing constitutive expression of an operably linked sequence. The construction of this promoter provides a general method for the discovery of novel sequences with utility as promoters. The present invention is also directed to DNA molecules including said promoter, such as a DNA construct comprising the promoter operably linked to one or more genes or antisense DNA. The invention is further directed to transformed plant tissue including the DNA molecule and to transformed plants and seeds thereof. The promoter is useful for driving gene or antisense expression for the purpose of imparting agronomically useful traits such as, but not limited to, increase in yield, disease resistance, insect resistance, herbicide tolerance, drought tolerance and salt tolerance in plants. Nucleotide sequences are described herein that regulate transcription with high constitutive expression in plant cells.

A recombinant host may be any prokaryotic or eukaryotic cell that contains either a cloning vector or an expression vector. This term also includes those prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells that have been genetically engineered to contain the cloned gene(s) in the chromosome or genome of the host cell. The promoter is, in an embodiment, particularly useful for the expression of gene sequences in plants. It can be used in any plant species, including a dicotyledonous plant, such as, by way of example but not limitation, tobacco, tomato, potato, soybean, cotton, canola, sunflower or alfalfa. Alternatively, the plant may be a monocotyledonous plant, by way of example but not limitation, maize, wheat, rye, rice, oat, barley, turfgrass, sorghum, millet or sugarcane.

The nucleotide sequences of the invention can be used to isolate corresponding sequences from other organisms, particularly other plants, or to synthesize synthetic sequences. In this manner, methods such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), hybridization, synthetic gene construction and the like can be used to identify or generate such sequences based on their sequence homology to the sequences set forth herein. Sequences identified, isolated or constructed based on their sequence identity to the whole of or any portion of the promoter sequences set forth are encompassed by the present invention. synthesis of sequences suitably employed in the present invention can be effected by means of mutally priming long oligonucleotides. See for example, Wosnick et al. (1987). In a PCR approach, oligonucleotide primers can be designed for use in PCR reactions to amplify corresponding DNA sequences from cDNA or genomic DNA extracted from any plant of interest. Methods for designing PCR primers and PCR cloning are generally known in the art and are disclosed (Sambrook et al., 1989; Innis et al., 1990; Innis et al., 1995; Innis et al., 1999). Moreover, current techniques which employ the PCR reaction permit the synthesis of genes as large as 1.8 kilobases in length. See Adang et al. (1993) and Bambot et al. (1993). Known methods of PCR include, but are not limited to, methods using paired primers, nested primers, degenerate primers, gene-specific primers, vector-specific primers, partially-mismatched primers, and the like. In addition, genes can readily be synthesized by conventional automated techniques.

In hybridization techniques, all or part of a known nucleotide sequence is used as a probe that selectively hybridizes to other corresponding nucleotide sequences present in a population of cloned genomic DNA fragments or cDNA fragments (i.e., genomic or cDNA libraries) from a chosen organism. The hybridization probes may be genomic DNA fragments, cDNA fragments, RNA fragments, or other oligonucleotides, and may be labeled with a detectable group such as ³²P, or any other detectable marker. Thus, for example, probes for hybridization can be made by labeling synthetic oligonucleotides based on the DNA sequences of the invention. Methods for preparation of probes for hybridization and for construction of cDNA and genomic libraries are generally known in the art and are disclosed (Sambrook et al., 1989).

For example, the promoter sequence disclosed herein, or one or more portions thereof, may be used as a probe capable of specifically hybridizing to corresponding sequences. To achieve specific hybridization under a variety of conditions, such probes include sequences that are unique among the sequences to be screened and are preferably at least about 10 nucleotides in length, and most preferably at least about 20 nucleotides in length. Such sequences may alternatively be used to amplify corresponding sequences from a chosen plant by PCR. This technique may be used to isolate sequences from a desired plant or as a diagnostic assay to determine the presence of sequences in a plant. Hybridization techniques include hybridization screening of DNA libraries plated as either plaques or colonies (Sambrook et al., 1989).

Hybridization of such sequences may be carried out under stringent conditions. By “stringent conditions” or “stringent hybridization conditions” is intended conditions under which a probe will hybridize to its target sequence to a detectably greater degree than to other sequences (e.g., at least 2-fold over background). Stringent conditions are sequence-dependent and will be different in different circumstances. By controlling the stringency of the hybridization and/or washing conditions, target sequences that are 100% complementary to the probe can be identified (homologous probing). Alternatively, stringency conditions can be adjusted to allow some mismatching in sequences so that lower degrees of similarity are detected (heterologous probing). Generally, a probe is less than about 1000 nucleotides in length, preferably less than 500 nucleotides in length.

Typically, stringent conditions will be those in which the salt concentration is less than about 1.5 M Na⁺ ion, typically about 0.01 to 1.0 M Na⁺ ion concentration (or other salts) at pH 7.0 to 8.3 and the temperature is at least about 30° C. for short probes (e.g., 10 to 50 nucleotides) and at least about 60° C. for long probes (e.g., greater than 50 nucleotides). Stringent conditions may also be achieved with the addition of destabilizing agents such as formamide. Exemplary low stringency conditions include hybridization with a buffer solution of 30 to 35% formamide, 1M NaCl, 1% SDS (sodium dodecyl sulfate) at 37° C., and a wash in 1× to 2×SSC (20×SSC=3.0 M NaCl/0.3 M trisodium citrate) at 50 to 55° C. Exemplary moderate stringency conditions include hybridization in 40 to 45% formamide, 1.0 M NaCl, 1% SDS at 37° C., and a wash in 0.5× to 1×SSC at 55 to 60° C. Exemplary high stringency conditions include hybridization in 50% formamide, 1.0 M NaCl, 0.1% SDS at 37° C., and a wash in 0.1×SSC at 60 to 65° C.

In general, sequences that correspond to the nucleotide sequences of the present invention and hybridize to the nucleotide sequence disclosed herein will be at least 50% homologous, 70% homologous, and even 85%, 86%, 87%, 88%, 89%, 90%, 91%, 92%, 93%, 94%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99% homologous or more with the disclosed sequence. That is, the sequence similarity between probe and target may range, sharing at least about 50%, about 70%, and even about 85% or more sequence similarity.

Specificity is also the function of post-hybridization washes, the critical factors being the ionic strength and temperature of the final wash solution. For DNA-DNA hybrids, the T_(m) can be approximated from the equation T_(m)=81.5° C.+16.6 (logM)+0.41(% GC)−0.61(% form.)−500/L, where M is the molarity of monovalent cations, % GC is the percentage of guanosine and cytosine nucleotides in the DNA, % form. is the percentage of formamide in the hybridization solution, and L is the length of the hybrid in base pairs (Meinkoth and Wahl, 1984). The T_(m) is the temperature (under defined ionic strength and pH) at which 50% of a complementary target sequence hybridizes to a perfectly matched probe. T_(m) is reduced by about 1° C. for each 1% of mismatching; thus, T_(m), hybridization, and/or wash conditions can be adjusted for sequences of the desired identity to hybridize. For example, if sequences with 90% identity are sought, the T_(m) can be decreased 10° C. Generally, stringent conditions are selected to be about 5° C. lower than the thermal melting point (T_(m)) for the specific sequence and its complement at a defined ionic strength and pH. However, severely stringent conditions can utilize a hybridization and/or wash at 1, 2, 3, or 4° C. lower than the thermal melting point (T_(m)); moderately stringent conditions can utilize a hybridization and/or wash at 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10° C. lower than the thermal melting point (T_(m)); low stringency conditions can utilize a hybridization and/or wash at 11 to 20° C. lower than the thermal melting point (T_(m)). Using the equation, hybridization and wash compositions, and desired T_(m), those of ordinary skill will understand that variations in the stringency of hybridization and/or wash solutions are inherently described. If the desired degree of mismatching results in a T_(m) of less than 45° C. (aqueous solution) or 32° C. (formamide solution), it is preferred to increase the SSC concentration so that a higher temperature can be used. An extensive guide to the hybridization of nucleic acids is found (1997) Ausubel et al, Short Protocols in Molecular Biology, page 2-40, Third Edit. (1997) and Sambrook et al. (1989).

Thus, isolated sequences that have regulatory element activity and which hybridize under stringent conditions to the promoter sequences disclosed herein, or to fragments thereof, are encompassed by the present invention.

The following terms are used to describe the sequence relationships between two or more nucleic acids or polynucleotides: (a) “reference sequence”, (b) “comparison window”, (c) “sequence identity” and (d) “percentage of sequence identity.”

(a) As used herein, “reference sequence” is a defined sequence used as a basis for sequence comparison. A reference sequence may be a subset or the entirety of a specified sequence; for example, as a segment of a full-length promoter sequence, or the complete promoter sequence.

(b) As used herein, “comparison window” makes reference to a contiguous and specified segment of a polynucleotide sequence, wherein the polynucleotide sequence in the comparison window may comprise additions or deletions (i.e., gaps) compared to the reference sequence (which does not comprise additions or deletions) for optimal alignment of the two sequences. Generally, the comparison window is at least 20 contiguous nucleotides in length, and optionally can be 30, 40, 50, 100, or longer. Those of skill in the art understand that to accurately reflect the similarity to a reference sequence due to inclusion of gaps in the polynucleotide sequence a gap penalty is typically introduced and is subtracted from the number of matches.

Methods of alignment of sequences for comparison are well known in the art. Thus, the determination of percent identity between any two sequences can be accomplished using a mathematical algorithm. Preferred, non-limiting examples of such mathematical algorithms are the algorithm of Myers and Miller (1988), the local homology algorithm of Smith and Waterman (1981), the homology alignment algorithm of Needleman and Wunsch (1970), the search-for-similarity-method of Pearson and Lipman (1988) and the algorithm of Karlin and Altschul (1990), modified as in Karlin and Altschul (1993).

Computer implementations of these mathematical algorithms can be utilized for comparison of sequences to determine sequence identity. Such implementations include, but are not limited to: CLUSTAL in the PC/Gene program (available from Intelligenetics, Mountain View, Calif., USA); the ALIGN program (Version 2.0) and GAP, BESTFIT, BLAST, FASTA, and TFASTA in the Wisconsin Genetics Software Package, Version 8 (available from Genetics Computer Group (GCG), 575 Science Drive, Madison, Wis., USA). Alignments using these programs can be performed using the default parameters. The CLUSTAL program is well described by Higgins and Sharp (1988), Higgins and Sharp (1989), Corpet (1988), Huang et al. (1992) and Pearson (1994). The ALIGN program is based on the algorithm of Myers and Miller (1988). The BLAST programs of Altschul et al. (1990) are based on the algorithm of Karlin and Altschul (1990). To obtain gapped alignments for comparison purposes, Gapped BLAST (in BLAST 2.0) can be utilized as described in Altschul et al. (1997). Alternatively, PSI-BLAST (in BLAST 2.0) can be used to perform an iterated search that detects distant relationships between molecules, see Altschul et al. (1997). When utilizing BLAST, Gapped BLAST or PSI-BLAST, the default parameters of the respective programs (e.g. BLASTN for nucleotide sequences, BLASTX for proteins) can be used, see the World Wide Web site ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Alignment may also be performed manually by inspection.

For purposes of the present invention, comparison of nucleotide sequences for determination of percent sequence identity to the promoter sequences disclosed herein is preferably made using the BlastN program (version 1.4.7 or later) with its default parameters or any equivalent program. By “equivalent program” is intended any sequence comparison program that, for any two sequences in question, generates an identical or similar alignment of nucleotide matches and percent sequence identity when compared to the corresponding alignment generated by the preferred program.

(c) As used herein, “sequence identity” or “identity” in the context of two nucleic acid sequences makes reference to the residues in the two sequences that are the same when aligned for maximum correspondence over a specified comparison window.

(d) As used herein, “percentage of sequence identity” means the value determined by comparing two optimally aligned sequences over a comparison window, wherein the portion of the polynucleotide sequence in the comparison window may comprise additions or deletions (i.e., gaps) as compared to the reference sequence (which does not comprise additions or deletions) for optimal alignment of the two sequences. The percentage is calculated by determining the number of positions at which the identical nucleic acid base occurs in both sequences to yield the number of matched positions, dividing the number of matched positions by the total number of positions in the window of comparison, and multiplying the result by 100 to yield the percentage of sequence identity.

Identity to the sequence of the present invention would mean a polynucleotide sequence having at least 65% sequence identity, more preferably at least 70% sequence identity, more preferably at least 75% sequence identity, more preferably at least 80% identity, more preferably at least 85% 86%, 87%, 88%, 89%, 90%, 91%, 92%, 93%, 94%, 95%, 96%, 97%, 98%, 99% sequence identity.

In accordance with one embodiment, a novel promoter is constructed by the following steps. The sequence of a known or newly discovered promoter is compared with known nucleic acid sequences, such as sequences in genomic databases. In one embodiment, this comparison is made in the GenBank database using a program such as FASTA (Genetics Computer Group, Madison, Wis.). Additional suitable databases and comparison programs are known to a person of skill in the art. Segments of sequence similar to the query sequence, i.e., the known or newly discovered promoter, are identified and selected. Segments are considered similar if they have between 60% and 100% sequence identity over the segment being examined. These segments can be 20-100 bases in length, although smaller or longer segments can also be selected. The selected sequences are aligned in linear order according to the sequence of the promoter being modified. The resultant promoter is a hybrid promoter comprised of sequences similar to but different from the original promoter. The short segments that make up the synthetic hybrid promoter may be parts of promoters or regulatory regions from other genes. The synthetic hybrid promoter is then constructed and empirically tested in a test expression system to determine its quantitative and qualitative characteristics. If the synthetic hybrid promoter has maintained or improved activity, it may be used directly. If the synthetic hybrid promoter has a lower activity, the sequence of the synthetic hybrid promoter is further modified by replacing some of the bases to generate a new hybrid promoter. The new hybrid promoter is again constructed and tested to determine if it has the desired maintained or improved activity. This procedure can be performed as often as necessary to derive the final hybrid promoter having the desired activity.

The invention is further to “functional variants” of the regulatory sequence disclosed. Functional variants include, for example, regulatory sequences of the invention having one or more nucleotide substitutions, deletions or insertions and wherein the variant retains promoter activity, particularly the ability to drive expression preferentially to the embryo of a plant. Functional variants can be created by any of a number of methods available to one skilled in the art, such as by site-directed mutagenesis, induced mutation, identified as allelic variants, cleaving through use of restriction enzymes, or the like. Activity can likewise be measured by any variety of techniques, including measurement of reporter activity as is described at U.S. Pat. No. 6,844,484, Northern blot analysis, or similar techniques. The '484 patent describes the identification of functional variants of different promoters.

The invention further encompasses a “functional fragment,” that is, a regulatory sequence fragment formed by one or more deletions from a larger regulatory element. For example, the 5′ portion of a promoter up to the TATA box near the transcription start site can be deleted without abolishing promoter activity, as described by Opsahl-Sorteberg, H-G. et al., 2004. Such fragments should retain promoter activity, particularly the ability to drive expression of operably linked nucleotide sequences. Activity can be measured by Northern blot analysis, reporter activity measurements when using transcriptional fusions, and the like. See, for example, Sambrook et al. (1989). Functional fragments can be obtained by use of restriction enzymes to cleave the naturally occurring regulatory element nucleotide sequences disclosed herein; by synthesizing a nucleotide sequence from the naturally occurring DNA sequence; or can be obtained through the use of PCR technology See particularly, Mullis et al. (1987) and Erlich, ed. (1989).

For example, a routine way to remove part of a DNA sequence is to use an exonuclease in combination with DNA amplification to produce unidirectional nested deletions of double stranded DNA clones. A commercial kit for this purpose is sold under the trade name Exo-Size™ (New England Biolabs, Beverly, Mass.). Briefly, this procedure entails incubating exonuclease III with DNA to progressively remove nucleotides in the 3′ to 5′ direction at 5′ overhangs, blunt ends or nicks in the DNA template. However, exonuclease III is unable to remove nucleotides at 3′, 4-base overhangs. Timed digests of a clone with this enzyme produces unidirectional nested deletions.

By “promoter” is meant a regulatory element of DNA capable of regulating the transcription of a sequence linked thereto. It usually comprises a TATA box capable of directing RNA polymerase II to initiate RNA synthesis at the appropriate transcription initiation site for a particular coding sequence. The promoter is the minimal sequence sufficient to direct transcription in a desired manner. The term “regulatory element” is also used to refer to the sequence capable of “regulatory element activity,” that is, initiating transcription in a desired manner. Therefore the invention is directed to the regulatory element described herein including those sequences which hybridize to same and have identity to same, as indicated, and fragments and variants of same which have regulatory activity.

The promoter of the invention may also be used in conjunction with another promoter. In one embodiment, the plant selection marker and the nucleotide sequence of interest can be both functionally linked to the same promoter. In another embodiment, the plant selection marker and the nucleotide sequence of interest can be functionally linked to different promoters. In yet third and fourth embodiments, the expression vector can contain two or more nucleotide sequences of interest that can be linked to the same promoter or different promoters. For example, the promoter described here can be used to drive the gene of interest and the selectable marker, or a different promoter used for one or the other. These other promoter elements can be those that are constitutive or sufficient to render promoter-dependent gene expression controllable as being cell-type specific, tissue-specific or time or developmental stage specific, or being inducible by external signals or agents. Such elements may be located in the 5′ or 3′ regions of the gene. Although the additional promoter may be the endogenous promoter of a structural gene of interest, the promoter can also be a foreign regulatory sequence. Promoter elements employed to control expression of product proteins and the selection gene can be any plant-compatible promoters. These can be plant gene promoters, such as, for example, the ubiquitin promoter (European patent application no. 0 342 926); the promoter for the small subunit of ribulose-1,5-bis-phosphate carboxylase (ssRUBISCO) (Coruzzi et al., 1984; Broglie et al., 1984); or promoters from the tumor-inducing plasmids from Agrobacterium tumefaciens, such as the nopaline synthase, octopine synthase and mannopine synthase promoters (Velten and Schell, 1985) that have plant activity; or viral promoters such as the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) 19S and 35S promoters (Guilley et al., 1982; Odell et al., 1985), the figwort mosaic virus FLt promoter (Maiti et al., 1997) or the coat protein promoter of TMV (Grdzelishvili et al., 2000).

The range of available plant compatible promoters includes tissue specific and inducible promoters. An inducible regulatory element is one that is capable of directly or indirectly activating transcription of one or more DNA sequences or genes in response to an inducer. In the absence of an inducer the DNA sequences or genes will not be transcribed. Typically the protein factor that binds specifically to an inducible regulatory element to activate transcription is present in an inactive form which is then directly or indirectly converted to the active form by the inducer. The inducer can be a chemical agent such as a protein, metabolite, growth regulator, herbicide or phenolic compound or a physiological stress imposed directly by heat, cold, salt, or toxic elements or indirectly through the actin of a pathogen or disease agent such as a virus. A plant cell containing an inducible regulatory element may be exposed to an inducer by externally applying the inducer to the cell or plant such as by spraying, watering, heating or similar methods. Any inducible promoter can be used in the instant invention. See Ward et al. (1993). Exemplary inducible promoters include ecdysone receptor promoters, U.S. Pat. No. 6,504,082; promoters from the ACE1 system which responds to copper (Mett et al. (1993)); In2-1 and In2-2 gene from maize which respond to benzenesulfonamide herbicide safeners (U.S. Pat. No. 5,364,780); the maize GST promoter, which is activated by hydrophobic electrophilic compounds that are used as pre-emergent herbicides; and the tobacco PR-1a promoter, which is activated by salicylic acid. Other chemical-regulated promoters of interest include steroid-responsive promoters (see, for example, the glucocorticoid-inducible promoter in Schena et al. (1991) and McNellis et al. (1998)) and tetracycline-inducible and tetracycline-repressible promoters (see, for example, Gatz et al. (1991), and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,814,618 and 5,789,156). Alternatively, plant promoters such as heat shock promoters for example soybean hsp 17.5-E (Gurley et al., 1986); or ethanol-inducible promoters (Caddick et al., 1998) may be used. See International Patent Application No. WO 91/19806 for a review of illustrative plant promoters suitably employed in the present invention.

Tissue-preferred promoters can be utilized to target enhanced transcription and/or expression within a particular plant tissue. Promoters may express in the tissue of interest, along with expression in other plant tissue, may express strongly in the tissue of interest and to a much lesser degree than other tissue, or may express highly preferably in the tissue of interest. Tissue-preferred promoters include, for example, those described in Yamamoto et al. (1997); Kawamata et al. (1997); Hansen et al. (1997); Russell et al. (1997); Rinehart et al. (1996); Van Camp et al. (1996); Canevascini et al. (1996); Yamamoto et al. (1994); Lam (1994); Orozco et al. (1993); and Matsuoka et al. (1993).

A promoter can additionally comprise other recognition sequences generally positioned upstream or 5′ to the TATA box, referred to as upstream promoter elements, which influence the transcription initiation rate. Using the promoter sequences disclosed here, it is possible to isolate and identify further regulatory elements in the 5′ region upstream from the particular promoter region identified. Thus the promoter region disclosed is generally further defined by comprising upstream regulatory elements such as those responsible for high level and temporal expression of the coding sequence, enhancers and the like. In the same manner, the promoter elements which enable low to high level expression can be identified, isolated, and used with other core promoters to confirm embryo-preferred expression. By core promoter is meant the sequence sometimes referred to as the TATA box (or similar sequence) which is common to promoters in most genes encoding proteins. Thus the upstream promoter of MuB promoter can optionally be used in conjunction with its own or core promoters from other sources.

The promoter of the invention may be combined with any number of other components to be introduced into the plant, including combined with a nucleotide sequence of interest to be expressed in the plant. The “nucleotide sequence of interest” refers to a nucleotide sequence that encodes for a desired polypeptide or protein but also may refer to nucleotide sequences that do not constitute an entire gene, and which do not necessarily encode a polypeptide or protein. For example, when used in a homologous recombination process, the promoter may be placed in a construct with a sequence that targets an area of the chromosome in the plant but may not encode a protein. Use of antisense versions of a nucleic acid sequence is another example where use of a sequence may not result in an encoded protein. If desired, the nucleotide sequence of interest can be optimized for plant translation by optimizing the codons used for plants and the sequence around the translational start site for plants. Sequences resulting in potential mRNA instability can also be avoided.

In general, the methods available for construction of recombinant genes, optionally comprising various modifications for improved expression, can differ in detail. However, conventionally employed methods include PCR amplification, or the designing and synthesis of overlapping, complementary synthetic oligonucleotides, which are annealed and ligated together to yield a gene with convenient restriction sites for cloning, or subcloning from another already cloned source, or cloning from a library. The methods involved are standard methods for a molecular biologist (Sambrook et al., 1989). An expression vector is a DNA molecule comprising a gene or antisense DNA that is expressed in a host cell. Typically, gene expression is placed under the control of certain regulatory elements, including constitutive or inducible promoters, tissue-specific regulatory elements, and enhancers.

One skilled in the art readily appreciates that the promoter can be used with any of a variety of nucleotide sequences comprising the nucleotide sequence of interest to be expressed in plants. In referring to an operably linked nucleotide sequence is intended a functional linkage between a promoter and another sequence where the promoter initiates and mediates transcription of the nucleotide sequence. For example, the nucleotide sequence of interest may encode a protein that is useful for industrial or pharmaceutical purposes or the like, or to impact the plant itself, such as through expression of a protein that provides disease resistance, insect resistance, herbicide resistance, or impacts agronomic traits as well as grain quality traits. DNA sequences native to plants as well as non-native DNA sequences can be transformed into plants and used to modulate levels of native or non-native proteins. One or more of such sequences and/or expression cassettes may be transformed into a plant cell (in referring to a plant cell, it is intended to include cells without plant membranes, such as protoplasts).

Such nucleotide sequences include, but are not limited to, those examples provided below:

1. Genes That Confer Resistance to Pests or Disease

(A) Plant Disease Resistance Genes. Plant defenses are often activated by specific interaction between the product of a disease resistance gene (R) in the plant and the product of a corresponding avirulence (Avr) gene in the pathogen. A plant variety can be transformed with cloned resistance gene to engineer plants that are resistant to specific pathogen strains. Examples of such genes include, the tomato Cf-9 gene for resistance to Cladosporium fulvum (Jones et al., 1994), tomato Pto gene, which encodes a protein kinase, for resistance to Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato (Martin et al., 1993), and Arabidopsis RSSP2 gene for resistance to Pseudomonas syringae (Mindrinos et al., 1994).

(B). A Bacillus thuringiensis protein, a derivative thereof or a synthetic polypeptide modeled thereon, such as, a nucleotide sequence of a Bt δ-endotoxin gene (Geiser et al., 1986). Moreover, DNA molecules encoding δ-endotoxin genes can be purchased from American Type Culture Collection (Rockville, Md.), under ATCC accession numbers. 40098, 67136, 31995 and 31998.

(C) A lectin, such as, nucleotide sequences of several Clivia miniata mannose-binding lectin genes (Van Damme et al., 1994).

(D) A vitamin binding protein, such as avidin and avidin homologs which are useful as larvicides against insect pests. See U.S. Pat. No. 5,659,026.

(E) An enzyme inhibitor, e.g., a protease inhibitor or an amylase inhibitor. Examples of such genes include, a rice cysteine proteinase inhibitor (Abe et al., 1987), a tobacco proteinase inhibitor I (Huub et al., 1993), and an α-amylase inhibitor Sumitani et al., 1993).

(F) An insect-specific hormone or pheromone such as an ecdysteroid and juvenile hormone a variant thereof, a mimetic based thereon, or an antagonist or agonist thereof, such as, baculovirus expression of cloned juvenile hormone esterase, an inactivator of juvenile hormone (Hammock et al., 1990).

(G) An insect-specific peptide or neuropeptide which, upon expression, disrupts the physiology of the affected pest. Examples of such genes include, an insect diuretic hormone receptor (Regan, 1994), an allostatin identified in Diploptera punctata (Pratt, 1989), insect-specific, paralytic neurotoxins (U.S. Pat. No. 5,266,361).

(H) An insect-specific venom produced in nature by a snake, a wasp, etc., such as, a scorpion insectotoxic peptide (Pang, 1992).

(I) An enzyme responsible for a hyperaccumulation of monoterpene, a sesquiterpene, a steroid, hydroxamic acid, a phenylpropanoid derivative or another non-protein molecule with insecticidal activity.

(J) An enzyme involved in the modification, including the post-translational modification, of a biologically active molecule; for example, glycolytic enzyme, a proteolytic enzyme, a lipolytic enzyme, a nuclease, a cyclase, a transaminase, an esterase, a hydrolase, a phosphatase, a kinase, a phosphorylase, a polymerase, an elastase, a chitinase and a glucanase, whether natural or synthetic. Examples of such genes include, a callas gene (PCT published application WO93/02197), chitinase-encoding sequences (which can be obtained, for example, from the ATCC under accession numbers 3999637 and 67152), tobacco hookworm chitinase (Kramer et al., 1993) and parsley ubi4-2 polyubiquitin gene (Kawalleck et al., 1993).

(K) A molecule that stimulates signal transduction. Examples of such molecules include, nucleotide sequences for mung bean calmodulin cDNA clones (Botella et al., 1994) and a nucleotide sequence of a maize calmodulin cDNA clone (Griess et al., 1994).

(L) A hydrophobic moment peptide. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,659,026 and 5,607,914, the latter teaches synthetic antimicrobial peptides that confer disease resistance.

(M) A membrane permease, a channel former or a channel blocker, such as, a cecropin-β lytic peptide analog (Jaynes et al., 1993) which renders transgenic tobacco plants resistant to Pseudomonas solanacearum.

(N) A viral-invasive protein or a complex toxin derived there from. For example, the accumulation of viral coat proteins in transformed plant cells imparts resistance to viral infection and/or disease development effected by the virus from which the coat protein gene is derived, as well as by related viruses. Coat protein-mediated resistance has been conferred upon transformed plants against alfalfa mosaic virus, cucumber mosaic virus, tobacco streak virus, potato virus X, potato virus Y, tobacco etch virus, tobacco rattle virus and tobacco mosaic virus. See, for example, Beachy et al. (1990).

(O) An insect-specific antibody or an immunotoxin derived there from. Thus, an antibody targeted to a critical metabolic function in the insect gut would inactive an affected enzyme, killing the insect. For example, Taylor et al. (1994) shows enzymatic inactivation in transgenic tobacco via production of single-chain antibody fragments.

(P) A virus-specific antibody. See, for example, Tavladoraki et al. (1993), which shows that transgenic plants expressing recombinant antibody genes are protected from virus attack.

(Q) A developmental-arrestive protein produced in nature by a pathogen or a parasite. Thus, fungal endo α-1,4-D polygalacturonases facilitate fungal colonization and plant nutrient release by solubilizing plant cell wall homo-α-1,4-D-galacturonase (Lamb et al., 1992). The cloning and characterization of a gene which encodes a bean endopolygalacturonase-inhibiting protein is described by Toubart et al. (1992).

(R) A developmental-arrestive protein produced in nature by a plant, such as, the barley ribosome-inactivating gene has an increased resistance to fungal disease (Longemann et al., 1992).

2. Genes That Confer Resistance to a Herbicide

(A) A herbicide that inhibits the growing point or meristem, such as an imidazalinone or a sulfonylurea. Exemplary genes in this category code for mutant ALS (Lee et al., 1988) and AHAS enzyme (Miki et al., 1990).

(B) Glyphosate (resistance imparted by mutant EPSP synthase and aroA genes, respectively) and other phosphono compounds such as glufosinate (PAT and bar genes), and pyridinoxy or phenoxy proprionic acids and cyclohexones (ACCase inhibitor encoding genes). See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,940,835, which discloses the nucleotide sequence of a form of EPSP which can confer glyphosate resistance. A DNA molecule encoding a mutant aroA gene can be obtained under ATCC accession number 39256, and the nucleotide sequence of the mutant gene is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,769,061. European patent application No. 0 333 033 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,374 disclose nucleotide sequences of glutamine synthetase genes which confer resistance to herbicides such as L-phosphinothricin. The nucleotide sequence of a phosphinothricinacetyl-transferase gene is provided in European application No. 0 242 246. De Greef et al. (1989) describes the production of transgenic plants that express chimeric bar genes coding for phosphinothricin acetyl transferase activity. Exemplary of genes conferring resistance to phenoxy proprionic acids and cyclohaexones, such as sethoxydim and haloxyfop, are the Accl-S1, Accl-S2 and Accl-S3 genes described by Marshall et al. (1992).

(C) A herbicide that inhibits photosynthesis, such as a triazine (psbA and gs+genes) and a benzonitrile (nitrilase gene). Przibilla et al. (1991) describes the use of plasmids encoding mutant psbA genes to transform Chlamydomonas. Nucleotide sequences for nitrilase genes are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,810,648, and DNA molecules containing these genes are available under ATCC accession numbers 53435, 67441 and 67442. Cloning and expression of DNA coding for a glutathione S-transferase is described by Hayes et al. (1992).

3. Genes That Confer or Contribute to a Value-Added Trait

(A) Modified fatty acid metabolism, for example, by transforming maize or Brassica with an antisense gene or stearoyl-ACP desaturase to increase stearic acid content of the plant (Knultzon et al., 1992).

(B) Decreased phytate content

(1) Introduction of a phytase-encoding gene would enhance breakdown of phytate, adding more free phosphate to the transformed plant, such as the Aspergillus niger phytase gene (Hartingsveldt et al., 1993).

(2) A gene could be introduced that reduces phytate content. In maize, this, for example, could be accomplished by cloning and then reintroducing DNA associated with the single allele which is responsible for maize mutants characterized by low levels of phytic acid (Raboy et al., 1990).

(C) Modified carbohydrate composition effected, for example, by transforming plants with a gene coding for an enzyme that alters the branching pattern of starch. Examples of such enzymes include, Streptococcus mucus fructosyltransferase gene (Shiroza et al., 1988), Bacillus subtilis levansucrase gene (Steinmetz et al., 1985), Bacillus licheniformis α-amylase (Pen et al., 1992), tomato invertase genes (Elliot et al., 1993), barley amylase gene (Sogaard et al., 1993), and maize endosperm starch branching enzyme II (Fisher et al., 1993).

The nucleotide sequence of interest can also be a nucleotide sequence used to target an area of the plant genome through homologous recombination. The promoter may be placed in a construct with such sequence, which sequence will not necessarily encode a protein. The sequence recombines in the genome and the promoter may be placed at the desired site targeted by the sequences to regulate the desired endogenous nucleotide sequence.

Further, the promoter can be used to drive mRNA that can be used for a silencing system, such as antisense, and in that instance, no protein is produced. Nellen et al. (1993); Alexander et al. (1988). Means of increasing or inhibiting a protein are well known to one skilled in the art and, by way of example, may include, transgenic expression, antisense suppression, use of hairpin formations, co-suppression methods including but not limited to: RNA interference, gene activation or suppression using transcription factors and/or repressors, mutagenesis including transposon tagging, directed and site-specific mutagenesis, chromosome engineering and, homologous recombination. In the case of use with homologous recombination, no in vivo construct will be required. A few of the myriad of examples of such systems available include use of the Mu transposon, Chandler et al. (1994); RNA interference (U.S. Pat. No. 5,034,323); use of hairpins, Smith et al. (2000) and ribozymes (Steinecke et al. (1992); and zinc-finger targeted molecules, WO 01/52620. Clearly many options are available for impacting a targeted protein.

A terminator region may also be included in the vector. Convenient termination regions are available from the Ti-plasmid of A. tumefaciens, such as the octopine synthase (MacDonald et al., 1991) and nopaline synthase termination regions. Examples of various other terminators include the pin II terminator from the protease inhibitor II gene from potato (An et al., 1989). See also, Guerineau et al. (1991); Proudfoot (1991); Sanfacon et al. (1991); Mogen et al. (1990); Munroe et al. (1990); Ballas et al. (1989); and Joshi et al. (1987).

In one embodiment, the expression vector also contains a nucleotide sequence encoding a selectable or scoreable marker that is operably or functionally linked to a promoter that controls transcription initiation, which can be the promoter of the invention or another promoter. For a general description of plant expression vectors and reporter genes, see Gruber et al. (1993). For example, the selective gene is a glufosinate-resistance encoding DNA or phosphinothricin acetyl transferase (pat) or a maize optimized pat gene or bar gene can be used under the control of the CaMV 35S or other promoter. Such pat or bar genes confer resistance to the herbicide bialaphos (Gordon-Kamm et al., 1990; Wohllenben et al. 1988). Other examples, without intending to be limiting, are hygromycin phosphotransferase, EPSP synthase and dihydropteroate encoding genes. See Miki et al. (1993). Scorable or screenable markers may also be employed, where presence of the sequence produces a visual and/or measurable product. Examples include a β-glucuronidase, or uidA gene (GUS), which encodes an enzyme for which various chromogenic substrates are known (for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,268,463 and 5,599,670)

The expression vector can optionally also contain a signal sequence located between the promoter and the gene of interest and/or after the gene of interest. A signal sequence is a nucleotide sequence, translated to give an amino acid sequence, which is used by a cell to direct the protein or polypeptide of interest to be placed in a particular place within or outside the eukaryotic cell. One example of a plant signal sequence is the barley α-amylase secretion signal (Rogers, 1985). Many signal sequences are known in the art. See, for example Becker et al. (1992), Fontes et al. (1991), Matsuoka and Nakamura (1991), Gould et al. (1989), Creissen et al. (1992), Kalderon et al. (1984) and Stiefel et al. (1990).

Leader sequences can be included to enhance translation. Various available leader sequences may be substituted or added. Translation leaders are known in the art and include, for example: picornavirus leaders, for example, EMCV leader (encephalomyocarditis 5′ noncoding region) (Elroy-Stein et al. (1989); potyvirus leaders, for example, TEV leader (Tobacco Etch Virus) (Gallie et al. (1995)); human immunoglobulin heavy-chain binding protein (BiP) (Macejak et al. (1991)); untranslated leader from the coat protein mRNA of alfalfa mosaic virus (AMV RNA 4) (Jobling et al. (1987)); tobacco mosaic virus leader (TMV) (Gallie. (1987)); and maize chlorotic mottle virus leader (MCMV) (Lommel et al. (1991)). See also, Della-Cioppa et al. (1987). Other methods known to enhance translation can also be utilized, for example, introns, and the like. Obviously, many variations on the promoters, selectable markers, signal sequences, leader sequences, termination sequences, introns, enhancers and other components of the vector are available to one skilled in the art.

Where appropriate, the nucleotide sequence (s) may be optimized for increased expression in the transformed plant. That is, the genes can be synthesized using plant-preferred codons for improved expression. See, for example, Campbell and Gowri (1990) for a discussion of host-preferred codon usage. Methods are available in the art for synthesizing plant-preferred genes. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,380,831, 5,436,391, and Murray et al. (1989). Additional sequence modifications are known to enhance gene expression in a plant. These include elimination of sequences encoding spurious polyadenylation signals, exon-intron splice site signals, transposon-like repeats, and other such well-characterized sequences that may be deleterious to gene expression. The G-C content of the sequence may be adjusted to levels average for a given cellular host, as calculated by reference to known genes expressed in the host cell. When possible, the sequence is modified to avoid predicted hairpin secondary mRNA structures.

In preparing the nucleotide construct, the various nucleotide sequence fragments can be manipulated, so as to provide for the nucleotide sequences in the proper orientation and, as appropriate, in the proper reading frame. Toward this end, adapters or linkers can be employed to join the nucleotide sequence fragments or other manipulations may be involved to provide for convenient restriction sites, removal of superfluous nucleotide sequences, removal of restriction sites, or the like. For this purpose, in vitro mutagenesis, primer repair, restriction, annealing, resubstitutions, e.g., transitions and transversions, may be involved.

Methods for introducing expression vectors into plant tissue available to one skilled in the art are varied and will depend on the plant selected. Procedures for transforming a wide variety of plant species are well known and described throughout the literature. See, for example, Miki and McHugh (2004); Klein et al. (1992); and Weising et al. (1988). For example, the DNA construct may be introduced into the genomic DNA of the plant cell using techniques such as microprojectile-mediated delivery (Klein et al. 1992), electroporation (Fromm et al., 1985), polyethylene glycol (PEG) precipitation (Mathur and Koncz, 1998), direct gene transfer (WO 85/01856 and EP-A-275 069), in vitro protoplast transformation (U.S. Pat. No. 4,684,611), and microinjection of plant cell protoplasts or embryogenic callus (Crossway, 1985). Agrobacterium transformation methods of Ishida et al. (1996) and also described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,591,616 are yet another option. Co-cultivation of plant tissue with Agrobacterium tumefaciens is a variation, where the DNA constructs are placed into a binary vector system (Ishida et al., 1996). The virulence functions of the Agrobacterium tumefaciens host will direct the insertion of the construct into the plant cell DNA when the cell is infected by the bacteria. See, for example, Fraley et al. (1983). Agrobacterium is primarily used in dicots, but monocots including maize can be transformed by Agrobacterium. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,550,318. In one of many variations on the method, Agrobacterium infection of corn can be used with heat shocking of immature embryos (Wilson et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,420,630) or with antibiotic selection of Type II callus (Wilson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,919,494).

Rice transformation is described by Hiei et al. (1994) and Lee et al. (1991). Standard methods for transformation of canola are described by Moloney et al. (1989). Corn transformation is described by Fromm et al. (1990) and Gordon-Kamm et al. (1990). Wheat can be transformed by techniques similar to those used for transforming corn or rice. Sorghum transformation is described by Casas et al. (1993) and barley transformation is described by Wan and Lemaux (1994). Soybean transformation is described in a number of publications, including U.S. Pat. No. 5,015,580.

In one preferred method, use of aerosol beam technology for introduction of nucleotide sequences into cells is employed. Aerosol beam technology employs the jet expansion of an inert gas as it passes from a region of higher gas pressure to a region of lower gas pressure through a small orifice. The expanding gas accelerates aerosol droplets containing the molecules to be introduced into a cell or tissue. Aerosol droplets produced are typically less than 0.1 micron in diameter at the point of impact with the target cells. DNA carried in aerosol droplets of this small size penetrates cells only because of the speeds attained by the aerosol droplets. Speeds achieved by the aerosol beam method of the invention are supersonic and can reach 2000 meters/second. In a preferred embodiment, the process includes (I) culturing a source of cells, (II) optionally, pretreating cells to yield tissue with increased capacity for uptake and integration by aerosol beam technology, (III) transforming said tissue with an exogenous nucleotide sequence by the aerosol beam method of the invention, (IV) optionally, identifying or selecting for transformed tissue, (V) optionally regenerating transgenic plants from the transformed cells or tissue, and (VI) optionally, producing progeny of said transgenic plants. This process is described in detail at Held et al., U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,809,232; 7,067,716; and 7,026,286 (these references, as all cited references, are incorporated herein by reference).

In accordance with the present invention, a transgenic plant can be produced that contains an introduced MuB promoter. It can be combined with any one of the components set forth above.

In a further embodiment, plant breeding can be used to introduce the nucleotide sequences into other plants once transformation has occurred. This can be accomplished by any means known in the art for breeding plants such as, for example, cross pollination of the transgenic plants that are described above with other plants, and selection for plants from subsequent generations which contain the nucleic acid and/or express the amino acid sequence or trait. The plant breeding methods used herein are well known to one skilled in the art. For a discussion of plant breeding techniques, see Poehlman and Sleper (1995). Many crop plants useful in this method are bred through techniques that take advantage of the plant's method of pollination. A plant is self-pollinating if pollen from one flower is transferred to the same or another flower of the same plant. A plant is cross-pollinating if the pollen comes from a flower on a different plant. For example, in Brassica, the plant is normally self-sterile and can only be cross-pollinated unless, through discovery of a mutant or through genetic intervention, self-compatibility is obtained. In self-pollinating species, such as rice, oats, wheat, barley, peas, beans, soybeans, tobacco and cotton, the male and female plants are anatomically juxtaposed. During natural pollination, the male reproductive organs of a given flower pollinate the female reproductive organs of the same flower. Maize plants (Zea mays L.) can be bred by both self-pollination and cross-pollination techniques. Maize has male flowers, located on the tassel, and female flowers, located on the ear, on the same plant. It can self or cross-pollinate.

Pollination can be by any means, including but not limited to hand, wind or insect pollination, or mechanical contact between the male fertile and male sterile plant. For production of hybrid seeds on a commercial scale in most plant species pollination by wind or by insects is preferred. Stricter control of the pollination process can be achieved by using a variety of methods to make one plant pool male sterile, and the other the male fertile pollen donor. This can be accomplished by hand detassling, cytoplasmic male sterility, or control of male sterility through a variety of methods well known to the skilled breeder. Examples of more sophisticated male sterility systems include those described by Brar et al., U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,654,465 and 4,727,219 and Albertsen et al., U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,859,341 and 6,013,859.

Backcrossing methods may be used to introduce the gene into the plants. This technique has been used for decades to introduce traits into a plant. An example of a description of this and other plant breeding methodologies that are well known can be found in references such as Poehlman et al. (1995). In a typical backcross protocol, the original variety of interest (recurrent parent) is crossed to a second variety (nonrecurrent parent) that carries the single gene of interest to be transferred. The resulting progeny from this cross are then crossed again to the recurrent parent and the process is repeated until a plant is obtained wherein essentially all of the desired morphological and physiological characteristics of the recurrent parent are recovered in the converted plant, in addition to the single transferred gene from the nonrecurrent parent.

EXAMPLES

The present invention is described by reference to the following Examples, which are offered by way of illustration and are not intended to limit the invention in any manner. Standard techniques well known in the art or the techniques specifically described below were utilized. In these Examples, corn is used for illustrative purposes only. Other plant species are also transformed with the DNA constructs of the present invention using techniques well known in the art.

Example 1 Construction of Plasmids used in Corn Transient Assays

A promoter sequence, designated Arabidopsis homolog to the CaMV 35S, was designed with around 80% homology to the CaMV 35S promoter (FIG. 1) and segments with homology to sequences from Arabidopsis as shown in FIG. 2: A: MuA U.S. Pat. No. 6,222,096 (SEQ ID NO: 2); B: AB000835 (SEQ ID NO: 3); C: Y08502 (SEQ ID NO: 4); D: U09376 (SEQ ID NO: 5); E: AB005247 (SEQ ID NO: 6); F: AF028711 (SEQ ID NO: 7); G: AC002521 (SEQ ID NO: 8); H: D12522 (SEQ ID NO: 9); I: AB012243 (SEQ ID NO: 10); J: AL022347 (SEQ ID NO: 11). The sequence was not randomly derived but based on homologies found in the database at the time of design. Three hundred fifty one bases of the CaMV 35S promoter were compared to plant DNA sequences, mainly from Arabidopsis, in the database GenBank using the FASTA program. Regions of homologies were then manually aligned using the CaMV 35S promoter as the template. A few bases within segments and in regions linking segments were changed to match the CaMV 35S sequence so that the homology would remain around 80%. The comparison of the MuB promoter with the CaMV 35 S promoter is shown in FIG. 3. Homology to the MuA promoter of U.S. Pat. No. 6,222,096 was about 70%. The comparison of the MuB promoter with the MuA promoter is shown in FIG. 4. The sequence was synthesized by the Molecular Biology Group at The Midland Certified Reagent Company, Midland, Tex. with EcoRI and SacI compatible overhangs on the 5′ and 3′ ends, respectively.

Plasmid 350096 was constructed by removing a root preferential promoter with an EcoRI and SacI double digestion from the plasmid pZMOO96 of U.S. Pat. No. 5,633,363 and replacing it with a CaMV 35S promoter from pSLJ4k1 which had compatible EcoRI/SacI cohesive ends. Plasmid pSLJ4k1 was obtained from the Sainsbury Laboratory at the John Innes Center, England. Plasmid 350096 consisted of a 1.3 kb CAMV 35S promoter, 0.5 kb intervening sequence six (IV6) from corn alcohol dehydrogenase, 1.8 kb GUS reporter gene, 0.25 kb nopaline syntase 3′ end (nos) in a pUC18 backbone.

The CaMV 35S promoter in p350096 was replaced with the synthesized Arabidopsis homolog. The plasmid p350096 was digested with EcoRI and SacI, then dephosphorylated to prevent self ligation. The homolog was directionally ligated into the EcoRI and SacI sites to produce pY0096.

Example 2 Transient Assays in Corn Callus

Tissue preparation: Type II callus of Stine elite inbred 963 was used as target tissue for transient assays. The Type II callus, initiated from immature embryos on N6AMOD medium (Table 1), was maintained as a stock culture on DN62 medium (Table 1). Tissue was transferred every ten days. For transient assays tissue was taken from these cultures (usually 4 to 5 days after subculture) and spread on a Whatman No 4 filter disk on DN620SM medium (Table 1) up to one day prior to bombardment with the particle inflow gun.

DNA Delivery: A particle inflow gun (PIG) as described by Finer et al. (1992) and Vain et al. (1993) was used to deliver the DNA. In brief, 50 mg of tungsten particles (M10 from Sylvania Chemicals/Metals, Towanda, Pa.) were sterilized for 15 minutes in 95% ethanol in a 1.5 ml microfuge tube. Particles were rinsed 3 times in sterile distilled water by repeated vortexing, centrifugation and resuspension in 0.5 ml water. Particle suspensions were made fresh for each experiment. Plasmid DNA was coated onto the particles by mixing 25 ul of tungsten particle suspension (2.5 mg), 5 μl of DNA (5 ug), 25 ul of 2.5 M CaCl.sub.2, and 10 ul of 100 mM spermidine (free base). After allowing the particles to settle for a few minutes while on ice, 50 ul of supernatant was removed. Two ul of the remaining particle suspension was pipetted onto the center of the screen of a syringe filter unit. The syringe filter unit was reassembled and screwed into the Luer-lok needle adaptor within the chamber. The target tissue in a petri plate was placed about 15 cm below the syringe filter unit. A vacuum of approximately 28 in Hg was applied and the particles were discharged when helium (80 psi) was released following activation of the solenoid by the timer relay.

TABLE 1 Media Compositions Ingredients/L N6AMOD DN62 DN62OSM N6 salts¹ 3.98 g 3.98 g 3.98 g N6 vitamins² 1 ml 1 ml 1 ml Asparagine 150 mg 800 mg 800 mg Myo-inositol 100 mg 100 mg 100 mg Proline 700 mg 1400 mg 1400 mg Casamino Acids 100 mg 100 mg 2,4-D 1 mg 1 mg 1 mg Sucrose 20 g 20 g 20 g Glucose 10 g MES 500 mg Mannitol 45.5 g Sorbitol 45.5 g AgNO₃ 10 mg Gelrite 2 g 3 g 3 g pH 6.0 5.8 5.8 ¹N6 salts - Sigma Plant Culture Catalogue ref. C 1416. ²N6 vitamins: 2 mg/l glycine, 0.5 mg/l nicotinic acid, 0.5 mg/l pyridoxine HCl, 1 mg/l thiamine HCl (Chu, 1978).

After bombardment, callus was incubated at 25° C. in the dark for 16-24 hours on the same medium used for bombardment. Then, transient GUS expression was evaluated by incubating the tissue in 0.5 mg/ml X-gluc (Gold Biotechnology, Inc. St. Louis, Mo.) in 0.1M sodium phosphate buffer pH 7.0 and 0.1% Triton-X-100 at 37.degree. C. for 4-16 h after which the number and intensity of blue foci were evaluated under a stereo microscope at approximately 10× magnification. Tissue was transformed with either p350096, or pMuB0096. Tissue transformed with p350096 or pMuB0096 had similar levels of transient expression. Tissue transformed with pY0096 was found to have lower levels of transient expression.

Example 3 Construction of Plasmids Used in the Transformation of Corn

The bar gene in pBARGUS (Fromm et al., 1990) was used to replace the GUS gene in pMuB0096 using the BamHI and PstI sites. Briefly, pBARGUS was digested with BamHI and PstI and the 800 bp fragment containing the bar gene was isolated. The plasmid pMuB0096 was digested with BamHI and PstI and the ends were dephosphorylated. The 800 bp fragment containing the bar gene was ligated to the digested, dephosphorylated pMuB0096 to produce the plasmid pMuBBar.

The MuBBar expression cassette was removed from pMuBBar by digestion with EcoRI and HindII and cloned into pSB11 (obtained from Japan Tobacco) after digestion with EcoRI and HindIII and dephosphorylation, resulting in the plasmid pSB11MuABar. Plasmid pSB11MuABar was combined with pSB1 (obtained from Japan Tobacco) via homologous recombination and mobilized into Agrobacterium LBA 4404 via triparental mating according to U.S. Pat. No. 5,591,616 resulting in pSBMuBBar. This plasmid in LBA 4404 was used in the transformation of corn.

Example 4 Transformation of Corn

Agrobacterium-mediated DNA delivery was used to produce stable corn transformants carrying MuB driving the bar gene. Agrobacterium LBA 4404 harboring PSB11MuBBar recombined with pSB 1 (Example 3) was taken from glycerol stocks and streaked out on YP medium (5 g/l yeast extract, 10 g/l peptone, 5 g/l NaCl, 15 g/l agar and pH 6.8) supplemented with 50 mg/l spectinomycin and grown for one or two days at 28.degree. C.

Immature embryos of Stine elite inbred 963 were aseptically removed from kernels of plants grown in a grow room (15 h photoperiod, 28° day and 25° night). Embryos were harvested 10 to 11 days after pollination when they were between 1 mm and 2 mm in length and then placed in 2 ml of LSinf medium (Table 2) in an Eppendorf tube. The mixture was then stirred with a vortex mixer (Vortex Genie 2) at full speed for 5 seconds, the LSinf removed, replaced with fresh medium and then stirred again. All medium was then removed from the tube using a Pasteur pipette. Bacteria were collected with a platinum loop (enough to coat the wire of the loop) and thoroughly suspended in 1 ml of Lsinf-AS medium (Table 2) using a Pasteur pipette. The bacterial suspension was then introduced into the tube containing the embryos and the mixture stirred with a vortex mixer at full speed for 30 seconds. After this the embryos were allowed to stand for five minutes and were then transferred to the surface of LSAS medium (Table 2) solidified with agar, care being taken to remove any accompanying liquid. Embryos were immediately oriented so that the scutellar surface was uppermost.

TABLE 2 Media Compositions Ingredients/L LSAS Lsinf LsinfAS MS salts/vits¹ 4.43 g 4.43 g 4.43 g Proline 700 mg Casamino Acids 1.0 g 1.0 g Na₂ EDTA 37.3 mg 37.3 mg 37.3 mg 2,4-D 1.5 mg 1.5 mg 1.5 mg MES 500 mg Thiamine HCl 1.0 mg 1.0 mg Sucrose 20 g 68.5 g 68.5 g Glucose 10 g 36.0 g 36.0 g Acetosyringone 100 μm 100 μm Phytagar 7 g pH 5.8 5.2 5.2 ¹MS salts/vits - Sigma Plant Culture Catalogue ref. M5519

The embryos were then cultured in the dark at 19° for 48 hours. After this time the plates were removed from the incubator and placed at 45° for 30 minutes. Then they were returned to the 19° incubator for a further day. Following this the embryos were transferred to DN62ALC (Table 3) and incubated at 24° for 5 days. Next, the embryos were transferred to DN62ALCB (Table 3) and incubated at 24° for 14 days. For the next 14-day passage the cefotaxime concentration was raised from 50 mg/l (in DN62ALC) to 250 mg/l. This medium—DN62ACB (Table 3)—allowed for a better control of the residual Agrobacterium cells contaminating the corn embryos. Embryos were then transferred back to DN62ALCB for a further 14 days. At this time, transformed corn clones could be recognized by their ability to grow as prolific Type II callus on the bialaphos-containing medium. Culture of the clones continued on DN62B medium (see Table 3) for a further two weeks after which time the Type II callus was transferred to DNROB medium (Table 4) to initiate regeneration. After one to two weeks on DNROB somatic embryos developed as individual structures. These embryos were allowed to mature for one to two weeks on a further passage of DNROB (Table 4) and were then transferred to DNO6S (Table 4). Finally, they were transferred to MSOG or ½MS 0.1IBA (Table 4) where they germinated and formed plantlets. The plantlets were then transferred to tubes containing ½MS 0.1IBA where roots developed. The plants were transferred to peat pots prior to going into the greenhouse. In the greenhouse the plants were grown to maturity and seed collected either after backcrossing to Stine inbred 963 or after selfing.

The presence of an expressing bar gene was then confirmed by leaf painting with the agricultural herbicide, LIBERTY, both in the primary transformants and in progeny. Mendelian ratios of an expressing bar gene were routinely observed in the progeny.

TABLE 3 Media Compositions Ingredients/L DN62B DN62ALC DN62ALCB DN62ACB N6 salts¹ 3.98 g 3.98 g 3.98 g 3.98 g N6 vitamins¹ 1 ml 1 ml 1 ml 1 ml Asparagine 800 mg 800 mg 800 mg 800 mg Myo-inositol 100 mg 100 mg 100 mg 100 mg Proline 1400 mg 1400 mg 1400 mg 1400 mg Casamino Acids 100 mg 100 mg 100 mg 100 mg 2,4-D 1 mg 1 mg 1 mg 1 mg Sucrose 20 g 20 g 20 g 20 g Glucose 10 g AgNO₃ 10 mg 10 mg 10 mg Bialaphos 1 mg 1 mg 1 mg Cefotaxime 50 mg 50 mg 250 mg Gelrite 3 g 3 g 3 g 3 g pH 5.8 5.8 5.8 5.8 ¹N6 salts and vitamins as in Table 1.

TABLE 4 Media Compositions Ingredients/L DNROB DNO6S MSOG ½ MS 0.1IBA MS Salts 4.43 g 4.43 g 4.43 g 2.215 g Asparagine 800 mg Proline 1400 mg Na₂ EDTA 37.3 mg 37.3 mg 37.3 mg 7.3 mg Casamino Acids 100 mg Nicotinic Acid 0.5 mg Gibberellic Acid 0.1 mg Indole-3-Butyric 0.1 mg Acid Sucrose 60 g 30 g 20 g Sorbitol 20 g Bialaphos 1 mg Gelrite 2 g 2 g Phytagar 7 g 7 g pH 5.8 5.8 5.8 5.8 ¹MS Salts - Sigma Plant culture Catalogue ref. M5519

Example 5 Transformation of Soybean

The plasmid pMuBGUS35N was transformed into soybean using aerosol beam technology as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,809,232. The plasmid MuBGUS35N contained two expression cassettes: 1) MuB promoter linked to the GUS gene with a NOS terminator and 2) 35S promoter linked to an NPTII gene with an OCS terminator. The NPTII expression cassette facilitated the selection of transformed callus on media supplemented with 300 mg/l kanamycin.

Embryogenic soybean callus was transferred after a culture passage of about 28 to 30 days from stock culture medium (B1-30 3Co5My 50 mg/l phytic acid—Table 5) to the center of a target plate containing the same medium. Embryogenic soybean callus can survive being held in a vacuum for at least 10 minutes. After one to three days' growth on the target plate, the soybean embryogenic callus is exposed to an aerosol beam of pMuBGUS35N (the MuB promoter driving the GUS gene). After beaming the tissue is spread out on a fresh plate (to minimize the risk of contamination) of the same medium.

TABLE 5 Growth Media for Soybean* Ingredients in 1 Liter B1-30 B3 B5G Ms Salts 4.43 g 4.43 g B5 Salts 3.19 g NaEDTA 37.3 mg 37.3 mg 37.3 mg 2,4-D 30 mg Activated 5 g Charcoal Phytagar 8 g 8 g Gelrite 2 g pH 5.8 5.8 5.8 *Variations of media referred to in Table 5 were tested, e.g., B1-30 3Co5My, which was made by adding 3% coconut water and 5 gm/l myoinositol to B1-30. Other variations included: B1-30 3Co5My0.25 PA0.5K which contained B1-30 basal medium plus 3% coconut water, 5 gm/l myoinositol, 0.25 gm/l phytic acid, and 0.5 gm/l additional KH₂PO₄ and ½ B5G which contained all ingredients of B5G medium at half strength.

Briefly, the treatment of target tissue with the aerosol beam apparatus was performed as follows: 1) place petri dish with tissue on the stage and close vacuum chamber; 2) start the vacuum pump; 3) start the syringe pump; 4) set the nebulizing gas pressure; 5) set the entrainment gas pressure, and by this time the correct vacuum in the chamber is reached; and 6) start the movement of the stage and let the system run for the time needed to complete the run. After the run is completed, shut down the stage, vacuum, syringe pump, nebulizing gas, entrainment gas, and remove target tissue from the chamber.

The aerosol was produced by a microflow nebulizer such as the HEN from J.E. Meinhard Associates Inc., or the MCN100 style M4 nebulizer from Cetac Technologies Inc. (Liu and Montaser, 1994; Tan, et al., 1992). The nebulizing gas was high purity compressed-helium which was regulated with an ACCU-TROL gas regulator—876× model RS-7-4 and filtered through an Arrow F300-02 IT filter. When HEN and the MCN100 microflow nebulizers were used, the nebulizing pressure was preferably 20-30 psi but worked within the range from about 10 psi to about 40 psi. The entrainment gas filled the entrainment tube and entrained the aerosol droplets in a straight line. Unfiltered, high purity compressed helium was used as the entrainment gas and was regulated by an Arrow R262 regulator to produce slight positive pressure as measured by a Gilmont model 65 mm gauge. The entrainment housing contained a nucleospot to reduce electrostatic charges and was maintained at a temperature of about 42° C. to about 55° C., and most preferably about 55° C. This reduced coalescing of the aerosol droplets and was controlled by two Omega CN9000 series temperature controllers. The sample flow rate to the nebulizer was controlled by a Harvard 11 infusion only syringe pump. The flow rate was 1 to 1200 μl/min using a sterile Becton Dickinson 1 cc plastic syringe with a 0.2 micron filter attached. The sample contained 10 mM Tris buffer (pH 7.0) or a carbohydrate molecule (for example 1 μl sucrose) and the molecules to be delivered.

Approximately one day after treating the soybean callus with the aerosol beam apparatus, transient expression was evaluated by histochemical analysis. Embryogenic callus was incubated in the presence of the substrate X-gluc (Gold Biotechnology, Inc.) at a concentration of 0.5 mg/ml in 0.1 M sodium phosphate buffer pH 7.0 and 0.1% Triton-x-100 at 37° C. After 1-4 hours blue spots appeared indicating GUS expression.

Plants were regenerated as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,809,232 and assayed for GUS activity, as described supra. Strong GUS activity was observed in leaves, roots and stem.

Thus MuB is a functional promoter with the characteristics of a constitutive promoter and useful in the genetic engineering of plants.

It will be appreciated that the methods and compositions of the instant invention can be incorporated in the form of a variety of embodiments, only a few of which are disclosed herein. It will be apparent to the artisan that other embodiments exist and do not depart from the spirit of the invention. Thus, the described embodiments are illustrative and should not be construed as restrictive.

REFERENCES

-   Abe et al. (1987) J. Biol. Chem. 262:16793 -   Adang et al. (1993), Plant Molec. Biol. 21:1131. -   Altschul, S. F., Gish, W., Miller, W., Myers, E. W. and     Lipman, D. J. (1990) Basic local alignment search tool. J. Mol.     Biol. 215, 403-410. -   Altschul, S. F., Madden, T. L., Schaffer, A. A., Zhang, J., Zhang,     Z., Miller, W. and Lipman, D. J. (1997) Nucleic Acids Res. 25,     3389-3402. -   Alexander et al. (1988) Gene 72:45-50 -   An, G., Mitra, A., Choi, H. K., Costa, M. A., An, K.,     Thornburg, R. W. and Ryan, C. A. (1989) Functional analysis of the     3′ control region of the potato wound-inducible proteinase inhibitor     II gene. Plant Cell 1, 115-122. -   Ausubel et al, (1997) Short Protocols in Molecular Biology, page     2-40, Third Edit. -   Ballas et al. (1989) Nucleic Acids Res. 17:7891-7903 -   Bambot et al. (1993). PCR Methods and Applications 2:266 -   Beachy et al. (1990) Ann. Rev. Phytopathol. 28:451 -   Becker, T. W., Templeman, T. S., Viret, J. F. and Bogorad, L. (1992)     The cab-m7 gene: a light-inducible, mesophyll-specific gene of     maize. Plant Mol. Biol. 20, 49-60. -   Broglie, R., Coruzzi, G., Fraley, R. T., Rogers, S. G., Horsch, R.     B., Niedermeyer, J. G., Fink, C. L. and Chua, N. H. (1984)     Light-regulated expression of a pea ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate     carboxylase small subunit gene in transformed plant cells. Science     224, 838-843. -   Bustos, M. M., Guiltinan, M. J., Jordano, J., Begum, D.,     Kalkan, F. A. and Hall, T. C. (1989) Regulation of     beta-glucuronidase expression in transgenic tobacco plants by an     A/T-rich, cis-acting sequence found upstream of a French bean     beta-phaseolin gene. Plant Cell 1, 839-853. -   Caddick M. X., Greenland, A. J., Jepson, I., Krause, K. P., Qu, N.,     Riddell, K. V., Salter, M. G., Schuch, W., Sonnewald, U. and     Tomsett, A. B. (1998) An ethanol inducible gene switch for plants     used to manipulate carbon metabolism. Nat. Biotechnol. 16, 177-180. -   Campbell and Gowri (1990) Plant Physiol. 92: 1-11 -   Canevascini et al. (1996) Plant Physiol. 112(2): 513-524 -   Casas, A. M., Kononowicz, A. K., Zehr, U. B., Tomes, D. T.,     Axtell, J. D., Butler, L. G., Bressan, R. A. and     Hasegawa P. M. (1993) Transgenic sorghum plants via microprojectile     bombardment. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90, 11212-11216. -   Chandler, (1994) The Maize handbook ch. 118 Springer-Verlag -   Corpet, F. (1988) Multiple sequence alignment with hierarchical     clustering. Nucleic Acids Res. 16, 10881-10890. -   Coruzzi, G., Broglie, R., Edwards, C. and Chua, N. H. (1984)     Tissue-specific and light-regulated expression of a pea nuclear gene     encoding the small subunit of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase.     EMBO J. 3, 1671-1679. -   Creissen, G., Edwards, E. A., Enard, C., Wellbum, A. and     Mullineaux, P. (1992) Molecular characterization of glutathione     reductase cDNA from pea (Pisum sativum L.). Plant J. 2, 129-131. -   Crossway, A. (1985) Mol. Gen. Genet. 202, 179-185. -   De Greef et al. (1989) Bio/Technology 7:61. -   Della-Cioppa et al. (1987) Plant Physiology 84:965-968. -   Elliott et al. (1993) Plant Molec. Biol. 21:515 -   Elroy-Stein et al. (1989) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci USA 86:6126-6130. -   Erlich, ed. (1989) PCR Technology (Stockton Press, New York). -   Finer et al. “Characterization of soybean promoters through     evaluation of GFP expression in transgenic soybean” The 11^(th)     Biennial Conference on the Molecular & Cellular Biology of the     Soybean, Aug. 5-8, 2006, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebr.     fisher et al. (1993) Plant Physiol. 102:1045. -   Fontes, E. B., Shank, B. B., Wrobel, R. L., Moose, S. P., OBrian, G.     R., Wurtzel, E. T. and Boston, R. S. (1991) Characterization of an     immunoglobulin binding protein homolog in the maize floury-2     endosperm mutant. Plant Cell 3, 483-496. -   Fraley, R. T., Rogers, S. G., Horsch, R. B., Sanders, P. R.,     Flick, J. S., Adams, S. P., Bittner, M. L., Brand, L. A., Fink, C.     L., Fry, J. S., Galluppi, G. R., Goldberg, S. B., Hoffmann, N. L.     and Woo, S. C. (1983) Expression of bacterial genes in plant cells.     Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 80, 4803-4807. -   Fromm, M., Taylor, L. P. and Walbot, V. (1985) Expression of genes     transferred into monocot and dicot plant cells by electroporation.     Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 82, 5824-5828. -   Fromm, M. E., Morrish, F., Armstrong, C., Williams, R., Thomas, J.     and Klein, T. M. (1990) Inheritance and expression of chimeric genes     in the progeny of transgenic maize plants. Biotechnology (N Y) 8,     833-839. -   Gallie et al. (1987) The 5′ leader sequence of tobacco mosaic virus     RNA enhances the expression of foreign gene transcripts in vitro and     in vivo. Nucleic Acids Res. 15(8):3257-73 -   Gallie et al. (1995) The tobacco etch viral 5′ leader and poly(A)     tail are functionally synergistic regulators of translation. Gene     165 (2):233-8. -   Gatz et al. (1991) Mol. Gen. Genet. 227:229-237 -   Gordon-Kamm, W., Dilkes, B. P., Lowe, K., Hoerster, G., Sun, X.,     Ross, M., Church, L., Bunde, C., Farrell, J., Hill, P., Maddock, S.,     Snyder, J., Sykes, L., Li, Z., Woo, Y. M., Bidney, D. and     Larkins, B. A. (1990) Transformation of maize cells and regeneration     of fertile transgenic plants. Plant Cell 2, 603-618. -   Gould, S. J., Keller, G. A., Hosken, N., Wilkinson, J. and     Subramani, S. (1989) A conserved tripeptide sorts proteins to     peroxisomes. J. Cell. Biol. 108, 1657-1664. -   Grdzelishvili, V. Z., Chapman, S. N., Dawson, W. O. and     Lewandowski, D. J. (2000) Mapping of the tobacco mosaic virus     movement protein and coat protein subgenomic RNA promoters in vivo.     Virology 275, 177-192. -   Griess et al. (1994) Plant Physiol. 104:1467. -   Gruber et al. (1993) Vectors for plant transformation. In:     Glick, B. R. and Thompson J. E. (Eds.) Methods in Plant Molecular     Biology and Biotechnology, CRC Press, pp. 89-119. -   Guerineau et al. (1991) Mol. Gen. Genet. 262:141-144 -   Guevara-Garcia et al. (1993) Plant J. 4(3): 495-505 -   Guilley, H., Dudley, R. K., Jonard, G., Balazs, E. and     Richards, K. E. (1982) Transcription of Cauliflower mosaic virus     DNA: detection of promoter sequences, and characterization of     transcripts. Cell 30, 763-773. -   Gurley, W. B., Czamecka, E., Nagao, R. T. and Key, J. L. (1986)     Upstream sequences required for efficient expression of a soybean     heat shock gene. Mol. Cell. Biol. 6, 559-565. -   Hammock et al. 91990) Nature 344:458. -   Hansen et al. (1997) Mol. Gen Genet. 254(3):337-343 -   Hayes et al. (1992) Biochem. J. 285:173 -   Hiei, Y., Ohta, S., Komari, T. and Kumashiro, T. (1994) Efficient     transformation of rice (Oryza sativs L.) mediated by Agrobacterium     and sequence analysis of the boundaries of the T-DNA. Plant J. 6,     271-282. -   Higgins, D. G. and Sharp, P. M. (1988) CLUSTAL: a package for     performing multiple sequence alignment on a microcomputer. Gene 73,     237-244. -   Higgins, D. G. and Sharp, P. M. (1989) Fast and sensitive multiple     sequence alignments on a microcomputer. Comput. Appl. Biosci. 5,     151-153. -   Huang, X., Miller, W., Schwartz, S. and Hardison, R. C. (1992)     Parallelization of a local similarity algorithm. Comput. Appl.     Biosci. 8, 155-65. -   Huub et al. (1993) Plant Molec. Biol. 21:985. -   Innis, M., Gelfand, D., Sninsky, J. and White, T. (1990) PCR     Protocols: A Guide to Methods and Applications. Academic Press, New     York. -   Innis, M., Gelfand, D. and Sninsky, J. (1995) PCR Strategies.     Academic Press, New York. -   Innis, M., Gelfand, D. and Sninsky, J. (1999) PCR Applications:     Protocols for Functional Genomics. Academic Press, New York. -   Ishida, Y., Saito, H., Ohta, S., Hiei, Y., Komari, T. and     Kumashiro, T. (1996) High efficiency transformation of maize (Zea     mays L.) mediated by Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Nat. Biotechnol. 14,     745-750. -   Jaynes et al. (1993) Plant. Sci. 89:43. -   Jefferson, R. A., Kavanagh, T. A. and Bevan, M. W. (1987) GUS     fusions: beta-glucuronidase as a sensitive and versatile gene fusion     marker in higher plants. EMBO J. 6, 3901-7. -   Jobling et al. (1987) Nature 325:622-625 -   Joshi et al. (1987) Nucleic Acid Res. 15:9627-9639 -   Kalderon, D., Roberts, B. L., Richardson, W. D. and     Smith A. E. (1984) A short amino acid sequence able to specify     nuclear location. Cell 39, 499-509. -   Karlin, S. and Altschul, S. F. (1990) Methods for assessing the     statistical significance of molecular sequence features by using     general scoring schemes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 87, 2264-2268. -   Karlin, S. and Altschul, S. F. (1993) Applications and statistics     for multiple high-scoring segments in molecular sequences. Proc.     Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90, 5873-5877. -   Kawalleck et al. (1993) Plant Molec. Biol. 21:673. -   Kawamata et al. (1997) Plant Cell Physiol. 38(7): 792-803 -   Klein, T. M., Arentzen, R., Lewis, P. A. and     Fitzpatrick-McElligott, S. (1992) Transformation of microbes, plants     and animals by particle bombardment. Biotechnology (N Y) 10,     286-291. -   Knultzon et al. (1992) Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 89:2624. -   Kramer et al. (1993) Insect. Molec. Biol. 23:691 -   Lam (1994) Results Probl. Cell Differ. 20: 181-196; -   Lee et al. (1988) EMBO J. 7:1241 -   Lee, N., Wang, Y., Yang, J., Ge, K., Huang, S., Tan, J. and     Testa, D. (1991) Efficient transformation and regeneration of rice     small cell groups. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 88, 6389-6393. -   Leung, J., Fukuda, H., Wing, D., Schell, J. and Masterson, R. (1991)     Functional analysis of cis-elements, auxin response and early     developmental profiles of the mannopine synthase bi-directional     promoter. Mol. Gen. Genet. 230, 463-474. -   Lommel et al. (1991) Virology 81:382-385. -   Longemann et al. (1992) Bio/Technology 10:3305. -   Macejak et al. (1991) Nature 353:90-94 -   Maiti, I. B., Gowda, S., Kiernan, J., Ghosh, S. K. and     Shepherd, R. J. (1997) Promoter/leader deletion analysis and plant     expression vectors with the figwort mosaic virus (FMV) full length     transcript (FLt) promoter containing single or double enhancer     domains. Transgenic Res. 6, 143-156. -   Marshall et al. (1992) Theor. Appl. Genet. 83:435. -   Martin et al. (1993) Science 262:1432. -   Mathur, J. and Koncz, C. (1998) PEG-mediated protoplast     transformation with naked DNA. Methods Mol. Biol. 82, 267-276. -   Matsuoka, K. and Nakamura, K. (1991) Propeptide of a precursor to a     plant vacuolar protein required for vacuolar targeting. Proc. Natl.     Acad. Sci. USA 88, 834-838. -   Matsuoka et al. (1993) Proc Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90(20): 9586-9590 -   McNellis et al. (1998) Plant J. 14(2):247-257) -   MacDonald et al. (1991) Characterization of the polyadenylation     signal from the T-DNA-encoded octopine synthase gene 19(20)5575-5581 -   Meinkoth, J. and Wahl, G. (1984) Hybridization of nucleic acids     immobilized on solid supports. Anal. Biochem. 138, 267-284. -   Mett et al. PNAS 90: 4567-4571 (1993) -   Miki et al. (1990) Theor. Appl. Genet. 80:449. -   Miki et al. (1993) “Procedures for Introducing Foreign DNA into     Plants” in Methods in Plant Molecular Biology and biotechnology     Glick et al. (eds) CRC Press, pp. 67-88. -   Miki, B. and McHugh, S. (2004) Selectable marker genes in transgenic     plants: applications, alternatives and biosafety. J. Biotechnol.     107, 193-232. -   Mindrinos et al. (1994) Cell 78:1089. -   Mogen et al. (1990) Plant Cell 2:1261-1272 -   Moloney, M. et al. (1989) High efficiency transformation of Brassica     napus using Agrobacterium vectors. Plant Cell Reports 8, 238-242. -   Mullis et al. (1987) Methods Enzymol. 155:335-350 -   Munroe et al. (1990) Gene 91:151-158 -   Murray et al. (1989) Nucleic Acids Res. 17:477-498 -   Myers, E. W. and Miller, W. (1988) Optimal alignments in linear     space. Comput. Appl. Biosci. 4, 11-17. -   Needleman, S. B. and Wunsch, C. D. (1970) A general method     applicable to the search for similarities in the amino acid sequence     of two proteins. J. Mol. Biol. 48, 443-453. -   Nellen et al. (1993) TIBS 18:419-423 -   Odell, J. T., Nagy, F. and Chua, N. H. (1985) Identification of DNA     sequences required for activity of the cauliflower mosaic virus 35S     promoter. Nature 313, 810-812. -   Opsahl-Sorteberg, H-G. et al., “Identification of a 49-bp fragment     of the HvLTP2 promoter directing aleruone cell specific expression”     Gene 341:49-58 (2004). -   Orozco et al. (1993) Plant Mol Biol. 23(6): 1129-1138 -   Pang et al. (1992) Gene 116:165. -   Pearson, W. R. and Lipman, D. J. (1988) Improved tools for     biological sequence comparison. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 85,     2444-2448. -   Pearson, W. R. (1994) Using the FASTA program to search protein and     DNA sequence databases. Methods Mol. Biol. 24, 307-331. -   Pen et al. (1992) Bio/Technology 10:292 -   Poehlman, J. M. and Sleper, D. A. (1995) Breeding field crops,     4^(th) Edition, Iowa State University Press. -   Pratt et al. (1989) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Comm. 163:1243. -   Proudfoot (1991) Cell 64:671-674 -   Przibilla et al. (1991) Plant Cell 3:169. -   Raboy et al. (1990) Maydica 35:383. -   Rinehart et al. (1996) Plant Physiol. 112(3): 1331-1341 -   Russell et al. (1997) Transgenic Res. 6(2): 157-168 -   Rogers, J. C. (1985) Two barley alpha-amylase gene families are     regulated differently in aleurone cells. J. Biol. Chem. 260,     3731-3738. -   Russell, D. A. and Fromm, M. E. (1997) Tissue-specific expression in     transgenic maize of four endosperm promoters from maize and rice.     Transgenic Res. 6, 157-168. -   Sambrook, J., Fritsch, E. F. and Maniatis, T. (1989) Molecular     Cloning: A Laboratory Manual, 2^(nd) Edition. Cold Spring Harbor     Laboratory Press, Plainview, N.Y. -   Sanfacon et al. (1991) Genes Dev. 5:141-149 -   Schena et al. (1991) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 88:10421-10425 -   Shiroza et al. (1988) J. Bacteriol. 170:810. -   Smith, T. F. and Waterman, M. S. (1981) Adv. Appl. Math. 2, 482-489. -   Smith et al. (2000) nature 407:319-320 -   Sogaard et al. (1993) J. Biol. Chem. 268(30) 22480-4. -   Steinecke et al. (1992) EMBOL J. 11: 1525. -   Steinmetz et al. (1985) Mol. Gen. Genel. 200:220 -   Stiefel, V., Ruiz-Avila, L., Raz, R., Pilar Valles, M., Gomez, J.,     Pages, M., Martinez-Izquierdo, J. A., Ludevid, M. D., Langdale, J.     A., Nelson, T., et al. (1990) Expression of a maize cell wall     hydroxyproline-rich glycoprotein gene in early leaf and root     vascular differentiation. Plant Cell 2, 785-793. -   Sumitani et al. (1993) Biosci. Biotech. Biochem. 57:1243 -   Tavladoraki et al. (1993) nature 266:469 -   Taylor et al. (1994) Abstract #497, Seventh Int'l Symposium on     Molecular Plant-Microbe Interations. -   Toubart et al. (1992) Plant J. 2:367. -   Van Camp et al. (1996) Plant Physiol. 112(2): 525-535. -   Van Damme et al. (1994) Plant Molec. Biol. 24:825. -   Velten, J. and Schell, J. (1985) Selection-expression plasmid     vectors for use in genetic transformation of higher plants. Nucleic     Acids Res. 13, 6981-6998. -   Wan, Y. and Lemaux, P. G. (1994) Generation of large numbers of     independently transformed fertile barley plants. Plant Physiol. 104,     37-48. -   Ward et al. Plant Mol. Biol. 22: 361-366 (1993) -   Weising, K., Schell, J. and Kahl, G. (1988) Foreign genes in plants:     transfer, structure, expression, and applications. Annu. Rev. Genet.     22, 421-477. -   Wohlleben, W., Arnold, W., Broer, I., Hillemann, D., Strauch, E. and     Puhler, A. (1988) Nucleotide sequence of the phosphinothricin     N-acetyltransferase gene from Streptomyces virochromogenes Tu494 and     its expression in Nicotiana tabacum. Gene 70, 25-37. -   Wosnicket al. (1987). Gene 60:115. -   Yamamoto et al. (1994) Plant Cell Physiol. 35(5): 773-778 -   Yamamoto et al. (1997) Plant J. 12(2) 255-265 -   Xia et al. Plant Physiol. (1994) 104:805-806 

1. A isolated regulatory element comprising a nucleic acid molecule selected from the group consisting of: (a) the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NO: 1; (b) a sequence having more than 80% identity to SEQ ID NO: 1; (c) a sequence which hybridizes to SEQ ID NO: 1 under highly stringent conditions of a wash of 50% formamide, 1.0 M NaCl, 0.1% SDS at 37° C., and a wash in 0.1×SSC at 60° C., wherein the sequence exhibits regulatory element activity; and (d) A sequence comprising a functional fragment of at least 71 bases of the nucleotide sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO: 1, wherein the fragment exhibits regulatory element activity.
 2. An expressional vector comprising a regulatory element selected from the group consisting of: (a) the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID NO: 1; (b) a sequence having more than 80% identity to SEQ ID NO: 1; (c) a nucleotide sequence which hybridizes to SEQ ID NO: 1 under highly stringent conditions of a wash of 50% formamide, 1.0 M NaCl, 0.1% SDS at 37° C., and a wash in 0.1×SSC at 60° C., wherein the sequence exhibits regulatory element activity; and (d) a sequence comprising a functional fragment of the nucleotide sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO: 1, wherein the fragment exhibits regulatory element activity.
 3. The expression vector of claim 2 further comprising a second nucleotide sequence operably linked to the regulatory element, the second nucleotide sequence capable of conferring a selected agronomic trait to a plant.
 4. The vector of claim 2 wherein the agronomic trait is selected from the group consisting of herbicide resistance, insect resistance, disease resistance, drought tolerance, salt tolerance and increased yield.
 5. A plant comprising the expression vector of claim
 2. 6. A plant cell comprising the expression vector of claim
 2. 7. A method of producing a transformed plant cell, the method comprising transforming a plant cell with the nucleotide sequence of claim
 1. 